Adam,

This makes your often and frayed point that modern academia is the apex of all that is wise and true , a view not unlike that common in 5^th century Greece.

Your cartoon, on first glance is condescending and funny,  Our poor, pathetic, silly ancestors how stupid they were; it is the kind of arrogance that compels archeologists to find religious significance in every chamber pot they encounter.

These words are just medieval appellations for the same activities modern scientists engage in;  Alchemy is now called chemistry, Astrology is now astronomy, magic is physics or science, and phenology is Neuroscience.  The joke falls flat with simple substitutions like chariots for automobiles, straw huts for houses, spears for guns, or furs for a Pierre Cardin suit.

I’ll take the time for one.of these derisions:

Phrenologists believed that certain areas of the brain controlled behavior. 

So it was believed that by examining the shape and unevenness of a head or skull, one could discover the development of the particular cerebral "organs" responsible for different intellectual aptitudes and character traits. For example, a prominent protuberance in the forehead at the position attributed to the organ of Benevolence was meant to indicate that the individual had a "well developed" organ of Benevolence and would therefore be expected to exhibit benevolent behavior.

Ironically, most of phrenology's basic premises have been vindicated, though the particulars of reading character from the skull have not. For example, the principle that many functions are localized in the brain is now a commonplace (although many other functions are distributed). Also, areas of the brain that are more frequently used (as the right hippocampus of London taxi drivers) may become enlarged with use. (See The Journal of Neuroscience, vol. 17, 1997.) This is exactly what phrenologists asserted.
Some personality or speech disorders correlate to specific atrophied regions of the brain. From this we conclude that the affected part of the brain was either necessary for or simply was that bit of the personality or ability. Modern brain imaging techniques, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) make the localization of functions demonstrable beyond doubt.
Paleontologists make endocasts from the skulls of early hominids to determine the shapes of their brains and have suggested that an enlarged node at Broca's region is evidence of language use. This is essentially phrenology in a new guise. Size is taken as evidence for power and functions are believed to reside in specifically bounded regions.
All of the 'organs' or bumps identified by phrenologists are now considered purely imaginary except for Gall's 'faculty for words or verbal memory'- which was close to the present location of Broca's and Wernicke's speech

areas. However, following Spurzheim's modifications of Gall's system, later phrenology abandoned this only correct organ!

http://pages.britishlibrary.net/phrenology/overview.htm#whatwasit

The point is that everything you know to be true about “science” will by scoffed at by your decendants as superstition and rubbish.   

As I said previously, “all arguments should have at least one counter argument as precaution against complacency or orthodoxy”;  unless dogma is your goal, which I often suspect it is.

 

(Edited by Robert Davison on 8/13, 6:47pm)

I promised Andrew an article and instead here I am. So be it.

Mike,

You are always the most fun to answer because of your glorious self-righteous evaluation of the quality of your education and the brilliance of your mind. (The ad hominem allows me a bit of latitude.*)

A short digression:  Annibale Verzumo relates the story of a  broad-minded physicist tells that the public tend to see scientists as "high priests", but they may be "indifferent to if not altogether bores ... by science". He quotes other scientists. One of them says that a strange public image of the scientist partly evolved out of the ideas about PREHISTORIC wizards "who had the power to release pestilence and other ills". (Their modern brothers are bent to follow their steps). Doctor Faust of the 16th century boasted of demon power. The unfair label of "mad scientist" had grown in the 18th century when Jules Verne wrote of an insane chemist who invented a devastating explosive and blew up an island; it was just like the atom bomb of today. 

The 18th century is not irrelevant to this reply.

The point is, alchemy is NOT chemistry and it would be inappropriate to teach in our schools today.

First any one foolish enough to defend imaginary standards for what is 'taught in our schools today' is delusional.  Second, how do you know about alchemy?  What do you know about alchemy? How much and what did Newton know about alchemy, and why would the subject be anymore inappropriate a study than the supposed science of psychology?  There is no appreciable difference between astrology and psychology except to what they attribute cause.   

The same is true of astrology vs astronomy, magic vs physics, phenology vs neuroscience

I thought I made the case in my last post that phrenology made some significant contributions to what you would prefer to call neuroscience.

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other word would smell as sweet."

--From Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

Supposing you meant our "descendants", [I’ve already corrected it.] of course we don't expect science to be taught the same way to future students as today's students but to incorporate everything discovered from now until then.

That won’t change the ‘way’ it will be taught, except that the amount of useless information may be decreased lightening the students load.

We don't think of Newton or Maxwell or Galileo as "rubbish" nor will future scientists think of todays science as rubbish. They will still think of "astrology" and "creationism" as rubbish however. Except of course for the Robert Davison's of the future. *

Perhaps you have heard this anecdote about Sir Francis Bacon. Sitting in his room above the tavern one evening the thought occurred to him, "I have written on philosophy, science and mathematics. Now I should also take on history."  As he set pen to paper, he glanced out his window and observed a commotion outside. He went downstairs to the tavern, where he heard no less than six highly divergent versions of what had occurred. Sir Francis went back upstairs and tore up what he had written, and  never again considered writing a book on history.

When you speak of the history of Science the examples you conveniently ignore are the embarassing ones.

In the 18th century, for example, astronomers did not believe in meteorites. Museums all over Europe threw out their precious meteorite specimens as humiliating reminders of superstitious mythology. Why? Because, as Antoine Lavoisier, father of modern chemistry declared, "Stones don"t fall from the sky, because there are no stones in the sky!" Period. End of discussion.  In 1772, a committee, of whom Lavoisier was a member, was appointed by the French Academy, to investigate a report that a stone had fallen from the sky at Luce, France. Lavoisier analyzed the stone of Luce. The exclusionists' explanation at that time was that stones do not fall from the sky: that luminous objects may seem to fall, and that hot stones may be picked up where a luminous object seemingly had landed -- only lightning striking a stone, heating, even melting it.1

The stone of Luce showed signs of fusion. Lavoisier's analysis "absolutely proved" that this stone had not fallen: that it had been struck by lightning. So, authoritatively, falling stones were damned. The stock means of exclusion remained the explanation of lightning that was seen to strike something -- that had been upon the ground in the first place.

Newton spent a great deal more time studying alchemy and astrology than he did physics.  Why, I leave to you to explain and also provide an explanation for the fact that the man was a paranoid delusional accustomed to hearing voices. Perhaps they were visitors from the future whispering about apples.

Galileo brought nothing new to anything.  He did not invent the telescope and 'his' theory about the of the earth rotating around the sun was, to be polite, ‘borrowed’ from Copernicus.  If it weren’t for some fanatical political Pope no one would have heard of him.

One of Maxwell's most important achievements was his extension and mathematical formulation of Michael Faraday's theories of electricity and magnetic lines of force. His paper On Faraday's lines of force was read to the Cambridge Philosophical Society in two parts, 1855 and 1856. Maxwell showed that a few relatively simple mathematical equations could express the behaviour of electric and magnetic fields and their interrelation. 20 year later, when Maxwell used Faraday's field theory to assume that light was an Electromagnetic Wave, and then correctly deduced the finite velocity of light, it was a powerful logical argument for the existence of the electromagnetic force field, and that light was a continuous wave like change in the field (electromagnetic radiation) that propagated with the velocity of light c through the ether. But as Einstein noted, by 1900, when it was discovered that light energy was emitted and absorbed in discrete amounts and thus 'particle' like (photons) the assumption that light was a continuous electromagnetic wave failed.

“all arguments should have at least one counter argument as precaution against complacency or orthodoxy”

 

Do they always have to be archaic arguments?

Not at all, I made that quite clear in my previous posts. I remember mentioning Hannes Alfen.   Your difficulty appears to be that you tend to create stereotypes, ascribing motivations to other that fit your paradyme but do not exist in fact.  You should stop it, it betrays a lazy mind.  In light of what I just said, I am convinced you think I am a creationist.  I am not.  Nor, I'm pretty sure would we agree on what ID was all about.  I don't believe it has anything todo with the creation of the universe, or animal life on the planet(even creationists believe in natural selection); I believe it concerns itself solely with the evolution of man which when compared to the evolution of the fauna on this planet appears to be have been amazingly rapid.

Try coming up with something new. Discarded ideas and ideas based on superstition are discarded for very good reasons. It's called progress and enlightenment.

"Try something new" is odd advice coming from you,  and "progress and enlightenment" can be synonyms for conformity and dogma. 

I deny your accusation that I cling to superstition and discarded ideas, and reject your suggestion that I stop asking questions to pursue conventional, facile explanations that don't quite fit.  You're the ugly step sister in this saga.

---------------

1-  Lazarus Fletcher. An Introduction to the Study of Meteorites. 11th ed. London: British Museum Trustees, 1914, 19-20. Antoine Lavoisier. "Rapport sur une pierre qu'on prétend ètre tombée du cil pendant un orage." 6 vols. Oeuvres de Lavoisier. Paris: Imprimerie Impériale, 1868, v. 4, 40-5.

Reed,

There are two kinds of people in the world, those who like to make rules and those that don't.  You are of the former. They always get my dander up, which is why we quarrel as often as we do. (I liked barge load of bullshit, btw, a great turn of phrase.)

You seem to believe that I prefer faith over reason, an impression entirely untrue.  I have made this point to you many times, and yet you cling to it.  Talk about faith!  As to reading, I have read, and yes, even understood everything Rand has written.  Our difference has nothing to do with reading lists; it is of temperament, your mind is prosaic (you like rules), mine is creative (I do not).  When I read, I hear the complexity of the musical score while you hear only the melody line. 

I want to quote from “The Non-Art of Objectivism” by Marcus Bachler, perhaps the finest article to appear on this site:

“There has been much criticism, on this website and elsewhere over the years, of the moralizing and cultish behaviour of Objectivists who digest and regurgitate Ayn Rand’s opinions and her philosophical pronouncements. I always believed that this dogmatic adherence to Objectivist doctrine was quite a recent phenomenon, probably encouraged by Ayn Rand herself and continued by her protégé Peikoff.

However, I’ve had to revise that opinion, because in The Art of Non-Fiction, I found exactly the same type of Objectivist cultish behavior being criticized by Ayn Rand herself. She even coined a term, “Objectivist ritualists,” as a description of someone who preaches Objectivism as a dogma, now often unfairly (unfair to Ayn Rand) referred to as a “Randroid.”

Philosophy cannot give you a set of dogmas to be applied automatically. Religion does that—and unsuccessfully. The dogmatic Objectivist desperately tries to reduce principles to concrete rules that can be applied automatically, like a ritual, so as to bypass the responsibility of thinking and moral analysis. These are “Objectivist” ritualists. They want Objectivism to give them what a religion promises, namely, ten or one hundred commandments, which they can apply without having to think or judge anything…

The purpose of philosophy is to guide a man in the course of his life. Unfortunately, many Objectivists have not fully accepted, concretized, and integrated this principle. For example, in the presence of a given event, work of art, person, etc., too many Objectivists ask themselves, “What do I have to feel?” Instead of, “What do I feel?” And if they need to judge a situation I have not discussed before, their approach is, “What should I think?” instead of, “What do I think?”

Being true to oneself, in other words, is important when writing or expressing yourself. Say what you really think and what you really feel, but avoid blindly reciting Objectivist doctrine, even when writing for an Objectivist publication…

It is not the duty of an Objectivist writer to smuggle in something to the glory of Objectivism, along the lines of waving the flag or a cross. When you write an article in which you evaluate cultural phenomena rationally, you do more for Objectivism than you could in any other form—even if you never mention reason, man, his means of survival, or any other Objectivist bromides which ritualistic “Objectivists” too often use inappropriately.”

As to Archimedes:

The Greeks said that he was killed while drawing an equation in the sand; did he run out of paper?

According to Plutarch, Archimedes had so low an opinion of the kind of practical invention at which he excelled and to which he owed his contemporary fame that he left no written work on such subjects.

It is interesting to determine why the result of the classical Pi first determined by Archimedes is untrue and why the modern transcendental Pi that was based on the Archimedes' method is also untrue due to the same error analysis.

http://www.dakhi.com/somen6.htm

But, you are correct Archimedes was a great man, but that does not belie the fact that history is littered with the corpses of infinitely more who were just plain fools.  You prove nothing by cherry picking.  These so called giants of their day today are barely footnoted or are as I have asserted laughing stocks in light of what we know today.

As I reminded Erickson last night, the examples selected for these  ‘arguments’ are the best of the lot, a useful tool in winning debates, but irrelevant to understanding a greater philosophical point.  

 
You want to talk about amazing Greeks discuss this.
 
 The Theory of the Four Humours was an important development in medical knowledge which originated in the works of Aristotle. The Greeks believed that the body was made up of four main components or Four Humours. These Four Humours needed to remain balanced in order for people to remain healthy. 

The Four Humours were liquids within the body- blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. These could be connected to the four seasons of the year: Yellow Bile with summer, black bile with autumn, phlegm with winter and blood with spring. 

Hippocrates and other Greek practitioners argued that the balance of the Four Humours would be most effected in those particular seasons. For example, if someone has a fever they would have been thought to have had too much blood in their body. The logical cure therefore is to 'bleed' the patient. 

Use of the Four Humours as a diagnostic tool would result in doctors looking for symptoms: the first time that clinical observation of a patient was recorded.